Los Angeles-based Air Lease Corporation (ALC) has ordered 25 A350 airliners, which are part-designed and tested at the firm's factory in Filton, where more than 4,000 people work.

The deal is expected to further safeguard about 1,000 jobs involved in work on the A350 XWB at the Filton plant.

It is the latest in a series of multi-billion-pound deals announced by Airbus in the last three months, following £10 billion deals with Turkish low-cost airline Pegasus and Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia.

The ALC deal is for A350 XWB family aircraft, which have yet to go into production.

John Leahy, the man in charge of sales at Airbus, said: "ALC's continued confidence in Airbus products and especially our fuel efficient A350 XWB and A320neo families is a great indicator of the long-term success of these aircraft."